


A Textbook Opportunity

by Eloarei



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Matchmaking, POV Alternating, POV Outsider, Spying, rewritten/extended scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-16 02:04:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21500053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloarei/pseuds/Eloarei
Summary: The Inquisitor wasn't a schemer, exactly. She just liked to take advantage of opportunities to make her friends happy. Finding out that Cassandra had a thing for their dwarf companion's trashy romance novels seemed like an opportunity. Now where was that Ring of Doubt...?
Relationships: Cassandra Pentaghast/Varric Tethras
Comments: 7
Kudos: 85





	A Textbook Opportunity

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my husband, who doesn't entirely approve of my shipping habits but keeps inadvertently encouraging them with comments like "Maybe the reason you can't romance Varric is because he's meant to be with Cassandra". Well if I wasn't thinking of it before, I sure am now, _dear_.  
> Also, I started thinking as I was writing this that _maybe_ I should play the DLC first, but, y'know, if something juicy happens in it, I'll just... write more, I guess?  
> Also, I wouldn't be remotely surprised if someone's already written basically this exact fic. But that's what I'd get for re-entering a fandom 4 years later.

The Inquisitor wasn’t a schemer. Well, she… sort of was. She had to be a little bit of a schemer to fit in around the Inquisition’s band of misfits (not to mention lead them), because they all were, in their own ways. If they’d been the sort to roll over and take what was handed them instead of pursuing what they thought best, none of them would have been there. But unlike a few of her fine allies, she was not manipulative, and never (if she could avoid it) cruel. She just took good advantage of situations as they were presented.  
  
(And she paid attention to her friends.)  
  
So of course when she stumbled upon Cassandra _reading_ (out in the open, which hardly made it stumbling), she quickly realized she was being presented another of those able-to-be-taken-advantage-of situations.  
  
At first the Inquisitor was genuinely innocent of any plotting. She’d just walked up to her teammate with the intent of saying hello, as one does, and been vaguely surprised to find the taciturn soldier peacefully engrossed in a book. It was clear, in another few steps, that it was a novel. (Technical books and historical documents always looked boring, even the ornate ones, and never betrayed the contents. This one had a pretty knight on the front, hair blowing in the adventurous breeze.) Apparently it was a good one too, because Cassandra hardly noticed her leader approaching until she was nearly upon her, and then she startled violently, entirely caught off guard.  
  
“What do you want?” she asked, wide-eyed and a bit too loud, as she hastily stumbled to stand and hide the book behind her back.  
  
“Nothing,” the Inquisitor said with an innocent frown that _wasn’t_ (at the moment) faked. “I’m just making the rounds.”  
  
Cassandra swallowed guiltily. “Ah, yes. Of course.”  
  
It would have ended there, but the Inquisitor was (as one might guess) rather the inquisitive sort, and she couldn’t let go of her curiosity now that it had been piqued. “What’s that book?” she asked, nodding to the hands still clasped behind her soldier’s back. “I didn’t know you liked to read.”  
  
“It’s nothing,” Cassandra lied, and it was so _clearly_ a lie.  
  
The Inquisitor laughed. “It can’t be _nothing,”_ she said, smiling over Cassandra’s obvious discomfort. Not because she liked to see her friends in distress, of course, but because this was just too unusual not to find curiously amusing. “If it was nothing, you’d show me.”  
  
That was the sort of logic best used on little siblings, but Cassandra knew it was infallible when spoken by the Inquisitor. She sighed heavily and brought the book out from behind her back, looking shamed. “It’s… a novel. A romance novel.”  
  
“What’s wrong with that?” the Inquisitor asked, reaching to take the novel where it was hesitantly offered. She wasn’t much one for reading, but there was an obvious appeal to romance that she thought most of their companions would understand. It was passion and dedication, virtues none of her friends lacked in some amount. Even the ones who didn’t seem interested in a relationship of their own (and admittedly she didn’t always know who was or wasn’t, aside from the amorous Iron Bull; she was neither that snoopy nor that gossipy) would probably not judge those who did wish to indulge.  
  
This fact brought the Inquisitor around to her current scheme, though not quite yet.  
  
“It’s… frivolous,” Cassandra muttered, as if repeating criticisms she’d heard from someone else and taken as fact long ago. It was quite sad to see the passionate woman degrade her own interest like that, and the Inquisitor was about to say something when she finally glanced down at the book and noticed the name on the cover.  
  
“Varric wrote this?”  
  
Cassandra’s embarrassed blush deepened.  
  
Ah.  
  
“Please, do not tell him,” she begged, looking both the dangerous warrior and the frightened little girl. “I couldn’t stand for him to know. He would be so… smug.”  
  
It made sense now. Cassandra wasn’t simply shy about her reading hobby, nor just because she liked romance. Alone, those things were probably true and probably things that, in the wrong circles (her seeker allies, maybe her family?), would cause ridicule and scorn, or at the very least an underestimation that would have rankled to the proud warrior. But what really made her face go so red with mortification was the other party involved. The author was not just a friend, it was Varric. On the surface, he and Cassandra often seemed frenemies at best.  
  
But the Inquisitor paid attention to her friends, and she’d spent enough time scouting the Hinterlands with the two of them (and Solas sometimes quietly smirking in the background, seeing much the same that _she_ did) that she could tell their relationship was much more deep and complex than that. Or at least, it was teetering on the edge of being deep and complex.  
  
She remembered when she’d found them in the tavern, Cassandra about to rip Varric’s throat out for lying to her about Hawke, the dwarf dodging between thankfully sturdy tables to avoid her wrath. Ultimately the Inquisitor had softly sided with Varric, who had never wanted to join the Inquisition in the first place and was just protecting a friend (because despite being a rogue and a self-professed scoundrel, he truly was more loyal and brave than most). The look of betrayal on Cassandra’s face was fierce and gut-wrenching, but as Varric walked off it became clear that the look was for _him,_ and it was just as heartbroken as it was angry. Cassandra had been devastated. She’d listened to the tales Varric had spun, and she’d really trusted every word. She hadn’t expected him to lie to her, not even by omission.  
  
Between that and the mostly-friendly sniping while they were out closing fade rifts and collecting elfroot, it wasn’t strictly obvious that they held any potential feelings for each other. It wasn’t _obvious_ even with the rest of it, like their respect for each other, the way they were conscious and considerate of each other in battle, and their mutual hatred of red lyrium. Rivals could share those things too. But the Inquisitor paid attention to her friends, and maybe she couldn’t exactly explain it, but she knew she had seen little things that spoke of a touch of… something more. Curiosity, nameless longing.  
  
Idly, she flipped through the book, and skimmed when she landed on a page that opened almost intuitively, memory folded into it by the crease in the spine that showed it’d been open to this page fairly often.  
  
 _“Oh,”_ she said. There were a lot of words on this page not readily said in polite conversation.  
  
“Yes, _oh,”_ Cassandra replied testily. Her face was set in a pout that made her beautiful strict features look even more strict, but also somehow softer. “You can see why I am not comfortable readily admitting my interest in this particular series of his.”  
  
The Inquisitor couldn’t help herself but grin. “Honestly, I bet he would be flattered.”  
  
“Insufferable is what he would be,” Cassandra asserted, crossing her arms. Then she sighed. “I don’t know how someone with such an attitude could write a story so achingly sweet. It defies logic.”  
  
What defied logic, in the Inquisitor’s opinion, was Cassandra’s denial. “I suppose he has a romantic side under his gruff demeanor,” she said. She didn’t follow up with ‘just like you’, even though it was nearly falling off the tip of her tongue.  
  
Cassandra scoffed. “Oh, I doubt that. He probably just wrote it for profit.”  
  
The Inquisitor turned the book over to glance pointedly down at the spine. “Isn’t this the sixth one in the series?”  
  
“Well, yes,” Cassandra admitted, “but if he cared for it, why would he take so long to release the next chapter?! It’s been ages, and he left it on a cliffhanger!”  
  
“We’ve all been a little busy lately,” the Inquisitor said with a shrug.  
  
“I’m sure.” Cassandra turned away, clearly done with the discussion. She only deigned to acknowledge the Inquisitor again when she held the book back out to her. “Please forget that we had this conversation,” she said, looking a bit shy and sad as she gripped the book in both hands.  
  
The Inquisitor only nodded. They both knew she would do no such thing, but Cassandra was a woman that had faith in her friends and the goodwill of her leaders, and she seemed to actually believe the Inquisitor would not pursue it any farther.  
  
Little did the hopeful warrior know, this was just the opening she was looking for.

x  
  
Varric could be found in the main hall, as always. It wasn’t exactly an ideal place for a private conversation, but nothing the Inquisitor had to say to him today was strictly private. It just had private implications-- deeply buried ones that likely Varric would not even notice.  
  
“May I ask you about your writing?” she said as she strolled up to his spot by the fireplace.  
  
“Ask away,” said Varric, spreading his arms magnanimously. “Although be aware that some details are trade secrets.”  
  
The Inquisitor smiled. “Fair enough. Mostly I’m curious about… ‘Swords and Shields’, I think?”  
  
“The romance series?” Varric raised an eyebrow, a slight frown tacked diagonal above his square jaw. “You don’t read those, do you?”  
  
 _“I_ don’t,” the Inquisitor said, shaking her head. “But I was told by an interested party recently that the last installment ended on a cliffhanger, which is apparently quite a shame. Why haven’t you continued the story?”  
  
Varric puffed air at her and waved dismissively. “Why bother? Nobody even reads it. Hardly sold enough to pay for the printing costs last time. Honestly, it’s trash.”  
  
Disallowing more than just the faintest smirk to cross her face, the Inquisitor looked off into the distance in feigned nonchalance. “Cassandra might disagree.”  
  
“Cassandra who?” Varric asked, and then a short moment passed before he asked incredulously, “Not the _Seeker?”_  
  
“The very one.” The Inquisitor turned the full weight of her smirk on the dwarf now, hoping to let it sink in that she knew how juicy this was. Of course, Varric didn’t know how juicy it _really_ was, but that was probably best, at least for now. “She’s apparently quite the fan. She said the story was… ‘achingly sweet’, if I remember right.”  
  
“It’s achingly _something,”_ Varric muttered, looking vaguely haunted by this new knowledge. He looked up at the Inquisitor, his gaze almost beseeching. “And you’re _sure_ that’s what she was reading? Maybe she had a different book under the cover. Maybe she was secretly researching battle techniques or something… more her style.”  
  
The Inquisitor’s smile was hard to hide, reaching too far up into her eyes. “Why is it so hard to believe that Cassandra enjoys these novels you've written? You wrote them. You must think they have _some_ merit.”  
  
Varric grimaced. “Well, sure. But they’re… y’know.”  
  
“I know. I stumbled upon some choice scenes when I skimmed it.”  
  
Nodding, as if that confirmed his bias, Varric said, “And Cassandra’s just, well, she’s not exactly the romantic type.”  
  
“Funny. She said the same about you.” The Inquisitor tilted her head up, to look down at Varric in a way she hoped he saw as friendlily judgmental. "Maybe there's more to her than meets the eye. Like, say, a favorite smutty romance series, the next installment of which would surely raise her spirits." 

The dwarf seemed to deflate. "So you're saying I should apologize for our fight the other day." Although he didn't seem to love the idea, he wasn't entirely opposed to it either, resigned and waiting for the Inquisitor's say-so. 

"Not quite. Cassandra was in the wrong and I think she accepts that. I just think she would appreciate knowing that you don't hold it against her." 

"A forgiveness gift?" Varric chuckled. "That's new." 

The Inquisitor inclined her head and gave him a soft look. "But you do forgive her, don't you? She was only acting out of passion for her cause. _Our_ cause." 

Varric hummed, the noise almost a groan. "Well when you put it that way, I guess her being a romantic doesn't seem so strange." 

"I think we're all a little romantic in our own ways," the Inquisitor said, smiling. 

A long sigh escaped Varric; it was a weary but affectionate sound that told the Inquisitor she had succeeded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. _Alright,_ I’ll look into it. Worst that could happen is she doesn’t like it, and I wasted a few evenings on pointless smut.”  
  
Of course Varric didn’t think about all the good that could come of it, but that was why _the Inquisitor_ was running this particular scheme.  
  
x  
  
It took Varric four days to come up with something he felt was sufficient. The Inquisitor knew, because she pestered him about it every time she passed, _if_ he was anywhere to be seen. Normally he could be found by the fireplace, reading or writing notes or fiddling with some ledgers if he wasn’t spinning a tall tale for one of the keep’s newcomers, so the fact that he was missing from his usual hangout spot for long stretches of the day was enough to insinuate that he was busy with something important.  
  
“Can’t write with an audience?” she asked him when she caught him taking a break one evening.  
  
“No, I can,” he replied. “Used to writing in a tavern, after all. I just figured that certain types of scenes should be written in private.”  
  
She gave him a cheeky smirk. “In case you needed a little inspiration?”  
  
Varric crossed his arms with a ‘hmph’. “Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be horny to write a good sex scene. Or even a bad one. You’ve just gotta know what people like.”  
  
The Inquisitor sat down in a nearby chair so that Varric didn’t assume she was just having a quick chat on her way elsewhere. The only ways for him to get out of this conversation would be to play along or escape back to his room, either of which had a chance of achieving something.  
  
“So you just have to figure out what Cassandra likes?”  
  
An uncomfortable sort of laugh bubbled up out of Varric’s throat. “I wouldn’t presume to know anything about that.”  
  
“But you can _presume_ she likes whatever you wrote in the first six books, can’t you?” the Inquisitor suggested, crossing one leg over the other.  
  
“I guess,” Varric admitted. “Honestly, this is a little awkward. It’s one thing knowing that the people around you probably read your books. I think almost everybody in Kirkwall has read _something_ of mine. But it’s something else entirely to write something with the intent of a specific person reading it. _Especially_ when it’s b-grade erotica.”  
  
The Inquisitor tried to smile gently, and _not_ let on that she found this whole situation likely more intriguing than most of Varric’s novels themselves. “I can imagine,” she said. “Like a research journal versus a diary.” She’d never written a research journal before (or a diary, for that matter), but they came across enough of them in their journeys to know that one was far more personal than the others.  
  
Varric chuckled. “I don’t think most scholars would appreciate having their work compared to ‘Hard in Hightown’, but sure. The point is, it’s weird enough to think of _anybody_ reading ‘Swords and Shields’, let alone the Seeker. I mean…”  
  
Unfortunately, Varric did not elaborate on what he meant, so the Inquisitor had to dig a little, while trying not to sound like she was digging. “So you’ve never had any fans approach you and ask if you’re as good a lover as your characters?”  
  
“Not yet,” Varric said, shaking his head in amusement. “To be honest I feel lucky nobody’s ever accused me of being that _corny_ in bed. Not that I get a lot of fans trying to sleep with me in the first place. Not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse. The few that have though, they mostly knew ‘Hard in Hightown’. I think they just liked that it had ‘hard’ in the name.”  
  
The Inquisitor laughed and leaned back a bit in her chair. “So you would say you’re more accustomed to being picked up by suspicious Inquisition agents.”   
  
“Recently, yeah,” Varric replied with a sardonic sideways nod.  
  
Grinning, the Inquisitor replied, “Funny that Cassandra ended up being both. I wonder if she was a fan first, or only after she met you?”  
  
Varric hummed, and again the noise made it sound like he doubted either option, even though it was clear that Cassandra _was_ a fan. “If she wasn’t, I don’t know what would have inspired her to _start_ reading my drivel after I gave her so much shit. But if she _was,_ Maker knows she must have been disappointed meeting me.”  
  
“Why would you say that?” the Inquisitor asked, genuinely puzzled.  
  
“Well, you know.” Varric shrugged. “They always say, don’t meet your heroes. Figure it probably goes for authors too. I don’t know if you noticed just from skimming, but I don’t exactly look like the heroes in my books. I’m not quite as tall, for one thing, and I wouldn’t know what to do with a sword if you stuck one in my hand and sat me in front of a darkspawn.”  
  
Although Varric’s tone played it off as if it were all a joke, like almost anything else he ever said that didn’t have to do with red lyrium, the Inquisitor definitely saw a grain of raw honesty in his self-deprecating self assessment, and for a moment it made her forget that she was playing a sort of game where only she could see the true shapes of the pieces.  
  
“I’m _sure_ Cassandra doesn’t care that you aren’t tall,” she said, gazing softly at the dwarf. “And she’s good enough with a sword for _two._ You don’t have to be a knight to be heroic, Varric. And you don’t have to be a knight for women to like you.”  
  
“Oh, I know women like me,” Varric said, smirking, though the expression didn’t entirely reach his eyes. “Dwarf women, usually. Sometimes elf girls. And almost always civilians who think I could put a little adventure in their lives. Or they want me to write them into my next book. Joke’s on them, because crime novels need a lot of corpses.” The joke fell flat when he didn’t continue with it and he sighed. “People who are _actually_ heroic don’t beg to go on adventures with rogue writers, because they could just go on adventures themselves.”  
  
She absolutely did not mean to spill the beans, but the fact that she did it unconsciously probably helped keep the conversation going somewhat smoothly. “Maybe Cassandra likes you for different reasons. Like because you’re smart, or loyal, or funny. Or maybe because you’re _not_ a knight, and you’re _not_ tall, but you still manage to be heroic. Maybe because you’re passionate in your own way.”  
  
As she said it, it dawned on the Inquisitor that she had just told Varric that Cassandra liked him, which was technically just conjecture even if she would stake her left hand on it, and for reasons that were _definitely_ just conjecture. She expected Varric to stare at her in horror or even angry denial at what she’d just said, maybe try to tell her that she needed to get her eyes checked, or that she should stop drinking with Bull so much. But his gaze just glazed over a little bit until it snapped back up at her with sudden clarity.  
  
“Sorry, I just figured out the next scene,” he said, and got up to excuse himself back to whatever shady corner he occupied when he wrote smut.  
  
x  
  
On the fourth day, the Inquisitor found him in his usual spot. He didn't look especially preoccupied. 

"How much more do you have left to do?" she asked as she sidled up to lean against a thankfully sturdy vase. 

"Oh I'm done," he said, and as she looked closer she could see that he did in fact look done: his eyes were tired but he had an air of accomplishment around him. 

"Did you give it to her?" the Inquisitor asked, surprised that Varric had finished it so quickly and dying to know how the hand-off went. She wished she'd been there, or maybe lurking somewhere nearby. 

Varric shook his head. "Nah, it's gotta go out to printing. I'll send it tomorrow and if my favorite press didn't get destroyed in all the chaos they should have the first copy back to me in a couple weeks." 

"Oh." A couple weeks was an awfully long time to wait. It wasn't that things couldn't simmer between the two of them for a while longer and probably be just fine, but they were on such a roll already, their respective feelings about the other still fresh in their mind from her prodding. "Maybe you could let her read the manuscript before you send it out." 

Raising an eyebrow, Varric protested. "It's a mess. It's still got all my notes scribbled out in the margins." 

"I'm sure she won't mind," the Inquisitor said brightly, refraining from adding her opinion that reading the next chapter of her favorite romance novel in Varric's own handwriting would probably really drive home whatever emotions the story invoked in Cassandra. It would make it seem like he had written it just for her. He _had,_ of course, but this way it would be irrefutable. _Less_ refutable, at least.  
  
“Mm, I _guess_ I could do that. But if she complains, I’m telling her it was your idea.”  
  
Before the Inquisitor could say that she would readily accept responsibility, Varric got up and started to walk off.  
  
“Did I offend you all of a sudden?” she asked.  
  
“What? No, I’m just going to do what you said.”  
  
“Right now?” the Inquisitor asked, not sure why she was surprised. She just thought Varric was going to need a little bit more goading.  
  
“Why not,” Varric said with a shrug. “Book’s not gonna get any better if I let it sit.”  
  
He didn’t wait for permission, so the Inquisitor was left standing there for a moment, and wondering if she had enough time to dash back up to her room for her Ring of Doubt.  
  
x  
  
She _did_ have enough time to fetch her ring, which was lucky because while the ground-level floor of the tavern was busy enough that she could have eavesdropped without being noticed, Varric found Cassandra on the _second_ floor, which was much more sparsely populated. Only the stealth granted by the ring was enough for her to avoid detection, when there were only three other pairs of people eating or lounging on the middle floor, and far less noise to cover her footsteps.  
  
Cassandra was having dinner alone, even though three of her teammates were within spitting distance (if you were any good at spitting). Though she was cordial with everyone, Sera, Cole, and Iron Bull were none of her best friends, so it wasn’t surprising that she chose to dine alone. It was probably better this way anyway, because either she or Varric might lose their nerve if they knew they had an audience. Best friends or not, Cassandra would almost certainly try to save face in front of their teammates; Varric would probably do the same, which would likely result in his being too sarcastic.  
  
As it was, the Inquisitor had managed to settle into a chair in a corner a few yards away from where Cassandra sat, and had a good view of Varric when he came up the stairs, holding the manuscript and looking a little less self-assured than was normal for him. Cassandra had her back turned, so she didn’t notice him until he cleared his throat and said, “Hey, Seeker.”  
  
She didn’t quite startle, but her posture went a bit rigid. Clearly restraining herself, she only glanced over her shoulder to watch Varric as he approached and came around to sit at the other side of the table. “Varric,” she said in simple greeting. “Do you need something?”  
  
“Actually, I do have something I thought you could help me with,” he said, settling the stack of pages down in front of him. They were bound loosely, but with obvious care with a plaidweave ribbon. The Inquisitor couldn’t help but wonder if he always bound his manuscripts so nicely-- especially for novels that were supposedly ‘trash’. “I’m about to send this off for print, but I could use a second opinion first.”  
  
Cassandra’s eyes lit up like a sigil, though she kept her expression otherwise carefully neutral. “Are there not countless other people who would be more suited to proofreading your writing? One of our many scribes, perhaps?”  
  
 _“Sure,”_ Varric said, running a hand back through his hair, dislodging some of it from his ponytail. "But I don't want to scar anyone for life. You're tough, so I figure you can handle it." 

Brows drawing down, Cassandra opened her mouth as if to argue her suspicion, but then Varric pushed the stack of pages her way, turning it around smoothly so the title was visible. It was in a small, precise print, with his signature scrawled beneath it. She looked down at it with a mixture of reverence and fear and reached out to touch it softly before catching herself and changing the gesture to seem less careful, schooling her expression into a faux-disinterest. 

"You think this is something that I would be interested in?" she asked, her voice the same moderately scornful tone that it usually was. 

Varric shrugged. "It's about a strong, beautiful knight woman. _You're_ a strong beautiful knight woman, or at least something close to that. Not that I would want to make any assumptions about your preferred reading, but it seemed like something that might be up your alley." 

Cassandra's strict features broke out in blush, though her mouth became pinched. "Have you been speaking to the Inquisitor?" she asked, sounding accusatory (and they all knew why, but the question was if they were going to admit it). 

"Most days," Varric said nonchalantly. "Why? Has she been making passes at you? I can talk to her about it if you want." The Inquisitor stifled a laugh. Trust Varric to refrain from ratting her out about spilling Cassandra's secret and then accuse her of unwanted flirting. Before Cassandra could do more than look slightly _more_ scandalized, he smirked and added, “But I’m not copying her, I swear. If she said the same thing about you, it’s pure coincidence.”  
  
“Ah, no,” Cassandra said, clearly at a loss for words in the face of what might have been Varric’s flirting, or might have just been his normal way of communicating. The _Inquisitor_ knew which one it was (well, she was pretty sure), but of course Cassandra, in her not-infinite but not-insubstantial capacity for denial, would think it might be the other. Without a good rebuttal, she turned to action instead, and looked back down at the manuscript in her hands, written in the hand of the frustrating but roguishly charming dwarf who often fought by her side. “I’ll read it for you,” she said, smiling softly if not _quite_ shyly. “I do happen to have experience on the battlefield.”  
  
One of Varric’s eyebrows rose smoothly and he said, “Oh _do you now?”_ which the Inquisitor thought seemed like a mediocre euphemism until Cassandra’s answering laugh (a nervous sort of chuckle, but one that felt good-natured and not annoyed at a flirt’s antics) made her assume it was the sort of inside joke that only someone who had read the books might understand.  
  
(As horrible and trashy as Varric seemed to think they were, the Inquisitor was starting to think she might have to give them a quick read-through, just for curiosity’s sake. Was Varric really insinuating that the characters had sex on the battlefield? How would that even work? She couldn’t help imagining getting a sword in the back when someone stumbled upon them while they were distracted. She supposed that was the charm of fiction though.)  
  
Though he looked somewhat like he wanted to sit there and watch Cassandra start reading, Varric pushed up from his seat at the table and brushed his clothes down, obviously intending to leave her to her dinner. “Just let me know what you think,” he said, nodding to her in goodbye. “Y’know, if any of the scenes need toned down. Or toned up.”  
  
“I will,” Cassandra replied with grave solemnity, as if Varric had tasked her with a mission of utmost importance. Varric took a few steps towards the stairs when she spoke up again, as if in complete afterthought. “Oh, have you eaten? The special today is shepherd’s pie. That’s a favorite of yours, isn’t it?”  
  
It wasn’t often that Varric looked genuinely surprised, possibly because his vivid imagination allowed him to anticipate most outcomes of any given situation, but he seemed honestly caught off guard for a long moment, his mouth open just slightly. “I did mention that once, didn’t I? Yeah, thanks for the tip. I’ll go grab one.”  
  
One corner of his mouth quirked up into a smile, and both Cassandra and the Inquisitor held their breath as he made his way down the stairs. Cassandra had _clearly_ been inviting him to eat, but the Inquisitor could _see_ her doubting if she’d been straightforward enough, or if maybe Varric was simply uninterested in dining. She stared at the wall across from her, unseeing, until a few long moments passed and she looked down at the manuscript instead. Her face fell into something a bit bittersweet and she started to leaf through it. The Inquisitor fixed her gaze between Cassandra and the staircase, waiting.  
  
For his part, Varric seemed visibly relieved when his head breached the second floor and he found the Seeker still sitting there, head bent down over the book. He sighed and smiled to himself as he carried his pie back over to the spot he’d been sitting in a quarter-hour before.  
  
“Guess Curly just let the soldiers out of training. There was a line out the door. I’d probably still be there if Tiny hadn’t provoked some of them into a drinking contest. Can you believe anyone still thinks they can out-drink him?”  
  
For a moment, Cassandra could only gape at him, surprised that he had returned when she seemed certain that he’d taken the opportunity to be rid of her, but then she smiled diplomatically and said, “Indeed. It is a fool’s errand. But perhaps it should not be so surprising that many of our soldiers are fools. The Inquisition itself surely seems a fool’s errand to many.”  
  
Far from discussing the book that lay at Cassandra’s fingertips, or the complicated and perhaps still half-buried feelings they had for each other, the two of them embarked on a conversation about their friends and teammates (friends, mostly, from Varric’s perspective; teammates largely from Cassandra’s). It wasn’t what the Inquisitor had really expected they might talk about; even the two of them both seemed to feel like there were other words left unsaid. But it was common ground, and it was communication of some sort, which was vastly preferable over the lingering sadness after their fight, no matter what their exact feelings. It was, if nothing else, a good starting ground.  
  
The Inquisitor left them to it, feeling a bit guilty about having intruded, and mostly pleased that so far neither had blown up in the other’s face. It was a favorable result.  
  
x  
  
Strained as their relationship occasionally was, Varric still considered himself friends with Cassandra, and thought she felt the same. So it was unfortunate, and not entirely his intention, that he didn’t spend much time with her outside of the Inquisitor’s presence. Their impromptu dinner date was a nice way to make up for that lack of quality time. For the most part they spoke about their other friends at Skyhold, and their varied personalities which somehow both clashed and melded. They agreed that it was an interesting group.  
  
They also agreed that they hadn’t meant to let their argument get so out of hand that the Inquisitor had to step in.  
  
“I was angry,” Cassandra admitted, “though I know that’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have shouted, or accused you of treachery when I know you’ve been loyal to our cause. I was wrong.”  
  
Varric shrugged magnanimously. “I don’t regret keeping Hawke’s secret, but believe me, Seeker, I didn’t do it just to get on your bad side. I _wanted_ to tell you; if it was anything else, I would have. I just couldn’t get Hawke involved in more dangerous shit.” He sighed, thinking back to when he was relaying the tale to the imposing Seeker. At first he hadn’t cared, but as she’d asked more detailed questions and explained her own fears, he felt bad to hold back so much. “You know I’m just a liar. I make my whole career off spinning stories so they’ll benefit me. I only tell the whole truth if it’s not gonna come back and bite me in the ass. I’m no fortune teller, so I figure it’s best to assume that it usually will. Hence, convenient half-truths.”  
  
Solemnly, Cassandra nodded. “I understand,” she said. “I am not always the most honest either. Though I prefer not to lie, there are always things I will keep to myself unless I know that I can trust them to someone.”  
  
“Luckily, it seems like we’ve found ourselves some pretty trustworthy allies,” Varric mentioned. “None of them seem the real betraying sort. The kind to string your underwear up on a flag pole or steal your dessert, absolutely. But I think they all have each other’s best interests at heart.”  
  
Eyelids lowered in a way that might have been seductive on most anyone else, Cassandra asked, “Like the Inquisitor?” She raised a brow at the slight twitch of Varric’s mouth. “I’m quite sure it wasn’t _the Maker_ who sent you to deliver this book specifically to me.”  
  
Varric laughed, relieved that they weren’t keeping up the charade anymore. Not wanting to incriminate the Boss in her petty scheming was not quite the same level of secret-keeping as protecting Hawke, and honestly, even he got tired of lies sometimes. “Well she _is_ the Herald of Andraste, so who can say?” He smirked and spread his hands as if to imply he couldn’t possibly know. “Maybe the Maker really did want you to have this cheap smut. Or maybe it’ll have some other far-reaching impact. Maybe it’ll inspire the affair of some foreign princess, or be the book that finally grants me everlasting infamy.”  
  
At Cassandra’s artfully raised eyebrow, Varric remembered (a bit late for the comment not to have been on purpose) that Cassandra was in fact a foreign princess herself.  
  
“You are already infamous,” she said, shaking her head fondly.  
  
“Well, one can never have too much infamy,” Varric responded.  
  
“Corypheus?” Cassandra suggested quite reasonably.  
  
Waving off the suggestion, Varric replied, “Nah, he could stand a little more.”  
  
The evening was drawing late, and there was never a lack of things for any of them to do, so they let the conversation fade as they wrapped up the meal. “I thank you for the book,” Cassandra said, nodding. “I’ll give it back as soon as I’m finished. But for now, I think I must excuse myself to finish looking over some documents Josephine sent me.”  
  
“Have fun with that,” Varric said, saluting.  
  
Cassandra stood to leave, and smiled softly as she gathered her things. “Oh yes, I’m sure I will. Goodnight, Varric.”  
  
“Sleep well, Seeker.”  
  
There was a bit of shepherd’s pie left on his plate, so he finished it off and then moseyed back to his room, considering starting his next novel. He’d had a few ideas pinging around in his head for a while now, and their ragtag group of friends kept adding more (mostly inadvertently). Having just finished one, he felt there was no better time to continue. As he arrived and settled into his writing desk, the ideas all warring with each other for dominance like so many tongues in his less elegant romances, he unfortunately found one paper that didn’t belong in the mess littering his workspace. It wasn’t just that it didn’t belong _there,_ but that it belonged specifically _elsewhere._ It was one of the earlier pages in the novel he’d just handed over, and without its presence the pages that followed its blank space weren’t likely to make much sense.  
  
Annoyed with his slip-up (imagine if it was the publisher he’d sent it out to like that! They’d have _probably_ realized something was amiss, but the delay would’ve been costly), he grabbed the offending page and headed back out into the halls to deliver it to its rightful resting place in Cassandra’s hands, nestled between its brethren.  
  
It was a few minutes’ trek through the castle and out into the grounds, even though many of the keep’s inhabitants were beginning to disappear into their private quarters for the night. Down the stairs and across the yard, over to the tower where he was _fairly_ sure Cassandra spent her personal time, Varric went, feeling just slightly foolish. The door creaked as it opened, and he peeked inside. Neither the quartermaster nor any of the workers were around, probably having retired as soon as their day’s work was done.  
  
Varric knew it was impolite to invite oneself into a lady’s room, but something about the layout of the area didn’t feel nearly private enough for him to really consider it; it was almost too similar to a barracks, with no dividing doors or barriers to speak of other than the wooden beams between floors. The slight creak he could hear from above even implied that Cassandra was still awake, maybe pacing about as she deliberated over whatever Josephine has asked of her, so it simply didn’t cross Varric’s mind that he might be intruding or disturbing her.  
  
Later, he _might_ be surprised that she didn’t hear his approach, but when his head crested the floor to the level of her sleeping quarters he was just surprised to find her in bed with the lights drawn low, in a soft, long-sleeved undershirt and little else, the blankets pooled around her ankles where they’d slid off her knees as she scratched a very private itch.  
  
“Oh Maker…”  
  
Varric dropped the page and it fluttered to the ground; he wasn’t sure if it was his voice, his footsteps, or the incongruous sound of the edge of the page hitting the floor with a sharp click that brought Cassandra to attention, but she opened her eyes, gasping when she saw him. Hastily, she pulled the blankets up around her, all the way to her chin.  
  
“Why are you here?!” she cried, voice high and cheeks rose-red in shocked mortification.  
  
It wasn’t very often at all that Varric had reason to stutter, and even less often that he gave into the instinct, but there was no way that anybody could criticize him about it then, not least of all his one audience member. “I, uh…” He swallowed, _hard._ “I missed a page when I was binding the book.” Not taking his eyes off her, because he simply could not, he bent down to pick the page up; it got a little bit crushed in his grip and he laughed nervously, too loud, the sound grating in his own ears. “I guess you didn’t need it though, huh?”  
  
“Maker, just kill me, please,” Cassandra mumbled, hiding her face in the blanket. “Just…” She gestured vaguely, unseeing, towards her desk, where the manuscript sat among a few other accoutrements. “Put the page down and leave me, please.”  
  
“Right,” Varric said, stepping over to the desk with precise, careful movements, as if trying not to spook her. She wasn’t a mage, but he didn’t doubt that she could find something as lethal as lightning bolts to throw at him if she felt like it. “Of course. Sorry, Seeker. I didn’t mean to intrude. I actually thought you might be reading it, which is why I brought it in such a hurry. Didn’t want to make you have to wait, you know.”  
  
“I haven’t even glanced at it at all,” Cassandra muttered, muffled as she gazed balefully at him over the edge of her blanket.  
  
“That’s almost disappointing,” Varric said, stuffing his hands in his pockets after the page was set safely down. “Thought maybe it was just so good you couldn’t help yourself. Unless it was the sheer anticipation?”  
  
Cassandra’s face poked up out of the blanket, scowling. “Yes, Varric. That’s exactly it.” She rolled her eyes, the annoyance of the gesture just a bit at-odds with how shy she looked otherwise. “What do you want me to say? That I was on edge after spending the evening with you? That I was compromised by just the thought of this gift?”  
  
Varric shrugged. “You _are_ a seeker of truth.”  
  
“And _you_ are a consummate liar, so what would you say?”  
  
His heart was still caught somewhere in the vicinity of his throat, which itself was almost too constricted to get any words out. He’d been in some situations before, embarrassing and arousing both, but this one might just take the cake.  
  
“...I’d say I don’t know why I’m still standing here when you told me to leave.”  
  
“So why _are_ you still standing there?” Cassandra asked, her voice in an obvious pout, like a child being unfairly rebuked. Or a woman trying her best to hold it together in the face of rejection from someone she cared about.  
  
Because, _lord,_ the Inquisitor hadn’t been lying, had she? Varric had thought all the woman’s comments about Cassandra’s feelings had been hypothetical, or meant in a more general sense. ‘Cassandra doesn’t care that you’re not tall, that you’re not a knight.’ Well, of course, he’d thought. Why should she? ‘Maybe she likes that you’re smart, loyal, funny.’ Fine. _Good,_ in fact; that was what he was going for-- likability. The Boss hadn’t said that Cassandra was getting her rocks off to him! And _to him,_ not even his shitty erotica.  
  
So why _was_ he still standing there?”  
  
“Well, you know how I said I’ll tell the truth if I think it’s gonna benefit me?” he asked, grinning and aware that the expression probably looked uneasy, but with no way to force it back to the usual charming smile he managed to employ most of the time. “I’m no fortune teller, and maybe it will come back to bite me in the ass. But the truth seems pretty appealing right now.”  
  
“Which truth?” Cassandra demanded, though she still kept her voice low, as if worried someone might overhear. “That you drive me crazy?”  
  
“As long as it’s the good kind of crazy,” Varric said with as smooth a smirk as he could, the one that usually got people to focus on him and ignore whatever was going on behind them.  
  
It only half worked on Cassandra, which was expected. “Honestly, it’s both,” she replied, about as deadpan as she could get in a situation where she was naked from the waist down and had just been walked in on.  
  
“You know? I’ll take that.”  
  
“Fine,” Cassandra said, ducking her head slightly. “Now are you going to leave me be?”  
  
Varric took a tiny half-step forward and gave her a smile that he hoped looked just the right amount of disarming. “You wouldn’t rather I stay?” he asked. “I could… help. Maybe drive you a little more crazy.”  
  
A shine lit up Cassandra’s dark eyes. “Is that what you want? To stay?”  
  
“I could have left any time,” Varric answered, alluding (as he was sure Cassandra realized) not just to the immediate situation they found themselves in, but to the larger ordeal of having been dragged into the Inquisition but choosing to stick around.  
  
Cassandra looked at him in something like wonder. “Then stay, if you like.” Seeming suddenly much less shy now that she knew where they stood (more or less), she let the blanket fall back around her waist, revealing her soft undershirt and the thin strip of pale skin where it ended.  
  
“I guess I won’t know until I try,” Varric said, almost more to himself than to her, kicking off his boots as he approached.  
  
“Maybe you won’t,” Cassandra said, gazing up at him softly. “But I am quite sure.”  
  
Of course Varric didn’t _really_ have any doubts. About the long-term? Sure, always. There was never any telling how things would turn out, not only after Corypheus was dealt with, but just… as the world turned. Would a year find the two of them still in the same country? That was so often not the case that he couldn’t assume anymore. In the here-and-now, though, he didn’t wonder that this could end badly. After all, what did he have to lose except a night of writing? (And he could catch up on that the next day, as long as a fade rift didn’t crack open in the middle of his room or something.)  
  
Once out of his shoes and pants, Cassandra proved easy to drive crazy in a variety of ways. He got on her nerves in every way he could, and left her an absolute mess, while she messed him up pretty bad in return. It was a nice evening.  
  
Really, there were only two downsides to the whole affair. The first was her comment as they were drowsing in the darkness while they lingered on the edge of sleep. “I really do like your book series,” she mumbled as he carded fingers through her short hair. “And I cannot wait to know what happens to the Knight-Captain. But I’m afraid it will all seem a bit less alluring, now that I have this to compare it to.”  
  
It was quite a way to compliment him on his lovemaking skills, but he groaned anyway, in exaggerated despondency. “Don’t tell me I’ve lost my only reader!” They both laughed afterward, knowing that he wouldn’t mind the trade, even if she _did_ suddenly give up her interest in the series.  
  
The other downside was going downstairs in the morning to find the quartermaster already at work.  
  
“Can I help you, sir?” the young man asked, obviously surprised to see Varric.  
  
“Oh, I just had to deliver some documents to the Seeker,” he replied, fighting the urge to straighten out his clothing.  
  
It seemed the quartermaster was going to accept his lie as absolute truth until his gaze, of course, zeroed in on a red mark near his open collar. “I hope you haven’t got a pox, sir,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “We’ve got enough problems around here as it is.”  
  
“Uhh, I’ll go get it checked out,” Varric promised, high-tailing it back to his room to find something else to wear. Maybe next time he’d bring a scarf.  
  
x  
  
After the night on which she spied on her two friends, the Inquisitor was busy dealing with some foreign affairs for a few days, and very nearly forgot about her little scheme. She was trotting down the main hall from the war room to the front doors on her way to see a man about a horse (that is to say she was going to check on the dracolisk some dignitaries had recently gifted her, and was dearly hoping it hadn’t bit Master Dennet like the last mount had) when she noticed Varric out of the corner of her eye, in the same spot he usually occupied. She stopped and pivoted on her heel, turning to head his direction instead.  
  
“Varric!” she called in greeting.   
  
He raised a hand in a casual saluting wave. “Hey, Boss. Welcome back.”  
  
“How have things been while I was away?” she asked, hoping he had something possibly juicy to tell her.  
  
“Don’t you have advisors to keep you up to date with the myriad happenings of Skyhold?” he said, smirking.  
  
The Inquisitor shrugged. “Of course. But there are certain things I don’t expect them to know. I was curious how Cassandra received the newest installment of your scandalous romance series.”  
  
“She liked it,” Varric told her, as nonchalant as you please.  
  
Nodding, the Inquisitor said, “I assumed as much. But did she tell you anything else?”  
  
Varric seemed to think about it for a long moment, although the Inquisitor had the sneaking suspicion that it was for show, and the tricky dwarf already knew exactly what he was going to say. “No, can’t think of anything. Oh, well she did tell me that she thinks the Knight-Captain is ‘frustratingly obtuse’ when it comes to advances made on her, but I already explained that that’s part of her charm.”  
  
The Inquisitor frowned. “That’s all she had to say? She didn’t tell you to tone anything down, or…?”  
  
The knowing look that slowly came over Varric’s face froze the Inquisitor deep down to her soul. “...Or tone it _up,_ maybe?”  
  
She knew using the Ring of Doubt in a non-combat situation was a bad idea, but it had just seemed so clever at the time. She swallowed and stood up straighter in some subconscious attempt at making herself seem larger than the dwarf and hopefully frightening enough for him not to eviscerate her. The spooked-deer expression probably ruined the gesture.  
  
But luckily, Varric was a forgiving kind of guy. No harm, no foul. He let her transgression roll off him like water off a duck’s back, and carried on with the conversation. “Nah. She seemed to like it how it was. I’ll probably try to get her advice for the next one, see if we can’t drum up some new readership."  
  
“Oh. Yes. That’s great,” the Inquisitor said, hardly hearing what Varric was saying because she was just too relieved that he didn’t seem to care she’d spied on him. But just in case it was only a momentary reprieve from the real bolt of judgment, she decided to see herself out of the conversation. She had a man to see about a horse, after all, and Varric was probably… busy or something. “Good luck with that.”  
  
“Thanks, Boss,” he said, with a smile that implied he was more than happy to keep the secret, and just very slightly wicked.  
  
She glanced over her shoulder as she left the room, and watched him wave goodbye with one hand as he idly rubbed a red spot on his neck with the other. It was a shame her plan hadn’t worked better, but she figured she could make another go of taking it further another time-- maybe after Varric had forgotten about this one. Perhaps next time she’d recruit a few more of their friends. Cole could help. At least that way, if things went south, there’d be someone else to blame. 


End file.
